Who Is In Charge?

By Rev. Ernest O'Neill

This morning is a great privilege for me and a great privilege for all of us here even if you don't particularly know the details because this is your first Sunday or you did not know the lady I am talking about. But Susan Bagdasarianz died on Thursday. So, I feel that it's God giving us an opportunity to receive something from Him personally. I'll try to tell you a little about her later in the service so that even those of you who didn't know about her, will be able to understand something of what it means to many of us here. But perhaps the first thing is to look at Job 1:21 because that is clear, plain reality and that's the first thing that God is saying to us this morning.

And he said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.'"

First of all, we need to bow before God and see that He is sovereign. And whatever all our theories are about healing, God is sovereign. He does what He does and He has the right to do it. We cannot refuse that. We cannot do anything about it finally. So, loved ones first of all that's the right thing to share with each other this morning. This is God saying once more, "I am your God. You are not God. Kenneth Hagen is not God. Oral Roberts is not God. Ernest O'Neill is not God. You are not God. I am God and I do what is right. And I require you to recognize that I am God and that I have that sovereign right. And your life continues as long as it is my will for it to continue."

The Lord is God and He has the right to give and He has the right to take away. We wouldn't have our own lives if it weren't through His graciousness.

Now, you can see that that ties up a little with the death of David's son. You remember how he prayed and prayed that the sick son would be made well. He fasted and would not eat. He wore sackcloth and ashes. Then when the son died, he bowed to God. Because of all his theories, all his great theories crumbled in the dust before reality. Then he dressed, put on his clothes, washed, and ate because he said, "The Lord has shown what His will is." No one can gainsay that. I share that brothers and sisters as the first place to begin in what I'd like to talk about in regard to healing today.

First of all, be realistic, be sensible, see what has happened and see God Himself is Lord. The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, whether we like it or not, whether we agree with it or not, that is reality. Finally, a sensible person will come to the point where they say, "God knows all things and God knows best and God does what is best for His children." Of course, those of us who know Jesus will go further and will say, "God does whatever it takes to save our souls if we are willing to have our souls saved at all." And so God Himself uses adverse circumstances, sicknesses, and all kinds of things to make sure that we come into heaven if we truly want to be in heaven. And so God makes sickness even His servant.

So, maybe that's the first place we should begin. God obviously at times does not heal sickness. He did not heal David's son when he prayed for him and he did not heal Susan in the way that many of us understood. So God is God. The Lord, He is God.

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